The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
›right‹ way. Ethics and cosmology are inextricable indissoluble« (1993: 178). Following
this understanding, an important role of rituals is to symbolically restore and maintain
the cosmic order or the ›order of life‹. At the same time, rituals can be seen as what
Berkes et al. describe as »mechanisms for cultural internalization« (2000: 1256).
Knowledge and social institutions require such mechanisms, so that learning can be
encoded and remembered by the group. Rituals, which are a visible cornerstone of
Mayan spirituality and express the reciprocal relationship that the peasants try to
maintain with nature, help the people remember the values and rules of their society.
Among the Q'eqchi', rituals mark significant points in the cultivation cycle. Foremost,
agrarian rituals practised at the time of site selection, slashing, sowing, weeding and
harvesting are integral to the interaction between humans and the natural world.
These expressions of the indigenous cosmovision are also interlinked with other subsistence
activities. Through rituals, which are inseparable from everyday knowledge of
fertility and health, the social, economic, spiritual and cosmological spheres of the
Q'eqchi' are intimately related. In the following, the focus will centre on agrarian rituals.
In addition, there are numerous other rituals practised at particular occasions such as
birth, marriage and death. There are healing rituals and rituals performed at festive occasions
of religious significance such as the local patron saints' days. Further specific
ceremonies are carried out, for instance, to inaugurate a new construction or when
droughts or floods threaten the milpas. The »exchange of spiritual food« between humans
and spirits, as Dudley and Balée (2005: 621) have termed the principle of reciprocity,
becomes obvious in the agrarian rituals practised among the Q'eqchi', as will be
shown in the following. 51
5.2.3 Ritual practice
Each culture has its own core symbols. (Wilson 1990: 41)
Certain phases of the cultivation cycle pertaining to site selection, slashing and burning,
planting, weeding, clearing and harvesting are accompanied by particular ceremonies.
The central ritual in this context, the so-called *mayejak, is a ceremonial expression
of particular importance within the realm of customary practices. It is directed at
the earth deity *tzuul taq'a, which has been defined by Wilson (1995: 53) as a »core image«
of the Q'eqchi' culture. 52 The mayejak forms a central part of a shared system of
community worship. It is an obligation that needs to be fulfilled in order to ensure a
51 For writings dealing with ritual practice, see the studies by Wilson (1995), Parra Novo (1997) and
Cabarrús (1998). For a general account dealing with ritual knowledge, see Jennings (2003). The
study Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity by Rappaport (1999) is also to be emphasised here.
52 In the literature, the term mayejak is commonly translated as ›sacrifice‹ or ›offering‹. Literally, tzuul
means mountain, taq'a means valley. The term tzuul taq'a exemplifies a phenomenon that Cajete
(2001) described when referring to indigenous languages that are replete with environmentally derived
references based on the kind of natural characteristics and experiences people have had living
in close relationship with their landscape.